Color profile: GenericORACLE CMYK printerTips & Techniques profile 8 / Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques / Jesse, Sale, Hart / 9462-6 / Chapter 3 Composite Default screen Blind Folio 3:61 CHAPTER 3 Configuring Windows 2000 P:\010Comp\OracTip8\462-6\ch03.vp Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:20:31 PM Color profile: GenericORACLE CMYK printerTips & Techniques profile 8 / Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques / Jesse, Sale, Hart / 9462-6 / Chapter 3 Composite Default screen Blind Folio 3:62 62 Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques here are three basic configurations of Oracle on Windows 2000: as T a management platform, as an Oracle client, and as a database server. The first configuration is the platform from which you will manage Oracle installations across various machines on various operating systems. Most system and database administrators are given a desktop PC to perform day-to-day tasks that are not DBA specific (such as reading e-mail). From this desktop, you can also manage Oracle components installed on other operating systems (for example, Solaris, Linux, and HP-UX). Even so, you will want to configure Windows 2000 to make your system and database administrative tasks quick and easy. The Oracle client software configuration is used in more configurations than you might first suspect: ■ Web applications that connect to an Oracle database: ■ IIS 5 ASPs that use ADO to connect to an Oracle database ■ Perl DBI application running on Apache that connects to an Oracle database ■ Any J2EE application server that uses the thick JDBC driver ■ Client/server applications: ■ Desktop Visual Basic application that uses OLEDB or ODBC to connect to an Oracle Database ■ Desktop Java application that uses the thick JDBC to connect to Oracle In any of these configurations, at least an Oracle client installation is required. In some cases, software vendors may hide this fact from the user; but the Oracle client libraries are necessary to connect to the database unless you use the JDBC thin driver. Operating system configuration offers the greatest return on investment in cases where Windows 2000 hosts the Oracle database. In this chapter, we will review some key things you can do to optimize Windows 2000 configuration to interact with Oracle. Here are the tips and techniques we offer in this arena: ■ Optimizing Windows 2000 for Oracle ■ Upgrading to multiple processors ■ Working with the Computer Management Console ■ Building custom MMC consoles ■ Using the Windows 2000 shell ■ Integrating Windows 2000 and Unix ■ Using the Resource Kit appropriately P:\010Comp\OracTip8\462-6\ch03.vp Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:20:32 PM Color profile: GenericORACLE CMYK printerTips & Techniques profile 8 / Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques / Jesse, Sale, Hart / 9462-6 / Chapter 3 Composite Default screen Blind Folio 3:63 Chapter 3: Configuring Windows 2000 63 ■ Using tools from the Sysinternals web site ■ Using the Event Viewer ■ Managing disks ■ Using the Task Scheduler Service ■ Understanding and controlling the Windows 2000 environment ■ Understanding Active Directory ■ Remote Administration with MMC ■ Remote Administration with VNC ■ Remote Administration with the Windows 2000 Telnet Server ■ Remote Administration with pcAnywhere and other commercial tools Windows 2000 Optimization ■ Locating other resources ■ Contemplating the future of Windows The Oracle RDBMS on Windows 2000 should usually run alone on its own server-class machine. In order to best ensure reliability and performance, you will need to configure the version of Windows 2000 you are running to best work with Oracle. Tuning Windows for Oracle One of the more common issues that Oracle database administrators face is how to configure the operating system to optimize it for database usage. In this section, we give you a number of quick tips you can implement to improve your operating system configuration for Oracle. Optimize Windows 2000 for Oracle Below are a number of tips you can implement right away to improve performance, availability, and manageability. Know When Rebooting Is Required In Windows 2000, there are far fewer tasks that require you to reboot. Here is a list of some that still do require you to reboot: ■ Making changes to the configuration of an ISA card P:\010Comp\OracTip8\462-6\ch03.vp Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:20:32 PM Color profile: GenericORACLE CMYK printerTips & Techniques profile 8 / Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques / Jesse, Sale, Hart / 9462-6 / Chapter 3 Composite Default screen Blind Folio 3:64 64 Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques ■ Adding or removing communication ports ■ Installing a service pack or hotfix ■ Changing the computer name ■ Changing the system font ■ Promoting a server to a domain controller ■ Changing the DNS suffix ■ Changing the IP address of a DNS server ■ Installing Terminal Services ■ Changing the system’s locale Use a Wallpaper to Identify Your System’s Key Information Create a JPEG file that identifies key information about the system such as node name, CPUs, memory, network cards, disk, and Oracle installation details (for example, Oracle home location and default Oracle SID). You can do this easily with MS Paint or any other graphics tool. This handy identifier keeps you from running commands on the wrong remote system, a common problem when many GUI remote desktops are running at one time. The JPEG also makes it easier to determine if you have connected to the correct remote computer. Check out the free bginfo tool from Sysinternals that makes getting this information even simpler. Optimize Use of Device Drivers Make sure that you are using a stable device driver and configure the device optimally to best serve a dedicated Oracle server. A bad device driver can make an otherwise rock solid system randomly transform into a blue screen generator. With the next generation of the Windows OS there will be a higher level of device driver certification. Windows 2000 Datacenter already requires a level of certification to allow for the new features and to ensure overall system integrity. Follow that trend and stick with heavily integrated systems from vendors like Compaq and others (see the Oracle Technology Network web site mentioned in the section “Resources” later in this chapter). Many device drivers have configuration screens or Registry settings that allow you to optimize use of the device for your application. Become familiar with these settings and learn the effect of setting changes on your applications through the use of performance baselines and controlled testing. Optimize CPU Usage and Configuration Before running out to get that new 64 CPU Datacenter server, you may want to try some of the following suggestions to improve CPU utilization. P:\010Comp\OracTip8\462-6\ch03.vp Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:20:32 PM Color profile: GenericORACLE CMYK printerTips & Techniques profile 8 / Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques / Jesse, Sale, Hart / 9462-6 / Chapter 3 Composite Default screen Blind Folio 3:65 Chapter 3: Configuring Windows 2000 65 Upgrade Kernel to Multiprocessor When Adding Second CPU In Chapter 1, we alluded to a simpler process on Windows 2000 for upgrading the OS kernel when going from a single processor to multiple processors. As promised, here are the steps: 1. Go into the Computer Management Console (see Figure 1-5 in Chapter 1 for a depiction of the Computer Management Console). Under System Tools, select the Device Manager. 2. Click the plus sign (+) next to the computer name to expand the list of devices, and then expand the device called Computer. You should see a display similar to Figure 3-1. As you can see in the figure, this machine already has the multiprocessor driver installed. 3. To upgrade your kernel, simply right-click, choose Properties, and then select the Driver tab in the dialog box that appears. Click the Update Windows 2000 Optimization Driver button. 4. The Upgrade Device Driver Wizard appears and walks you through the steps for upgrading the processor device driver. FIGURE 3-1. Computer Management Console multiprocessor device driver P:\010Comp\OracTip8\462-6\ch03.vp Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:20:33 PM Color profile: GenericORACLE CMYK printerTips & Techniques profile 8 / Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques / Jesse, Sale, Hart / 9462-6 / Chapter 3 Composite Default screen Blind Folio 3:66 66 Oracle9i for Windows 2000 Tips & Techniques Disable Screensavers A screensaver can suck an amazing amount of CPU and provide no useful purpose to a database server. In particular, disable the 3GL screensavers. Screensavers can grab valuable CPU from the OS and Oracle. If you must use a screensaver, use the Blank Screen screensaver to minimize CPU usage. Log Out Log out of your system when you are not doing something that requires you to remain logged on to the console. This will help minimize running applications. Configure the System as an Application Server Set Performance Options to Background Services on the Advanced tab of the System applet in the Control Panel (or right-click My Computer and then select Properties). This gives priority to applications running as services, such as the Oracle Services, as opposed to programs a user starts when logged in to the GUI desktop. Monitor the System for Highly Interruptive Hardware Hardware that consumes CPU interrupts and time should be avoided. Often, inexpensive hardware is cheaper because it offloads work onto the CPU. Higher quality hardware will handle calculations on the peripheral’s own resources. As an example, try to maintain the following options for disk controllers and network cards: ■ Network cards that support DMA, as opposed to PIO-supported bus mastering ■ 64-bit PCI disk controllers kept on a PCI bus separate from network controllers Use Performance Monitor to track the Processor Object’s % Interrupt Time counter. Baseline and benchmark this counter, and then monitor it regularly to spot possible problems. You can experience immediate performance gains where I/O is a bottleneck by switching to a good hardware RAID controller from the Windows 2000–supplied software RAID feature.